A new study found that children are more than 50% more likely to become obese if they have difficulty accessing grocery stores stocked with fresh, healthy food. This was reported on the 18th (local time) by the health and medical webzine ‘Health Day’ based on a paper by American researchers published in the Journal of the American Medical Association Pediatrics (JAMA Pediatrics).
A research team led by Izdin Aris, a professor of population medicine at Harvard’s Pilgrim Health and Care Institute, analyzed data on more than 28,000 American children collected by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) as part of the Child Health Study.
The researchers first assessed how many children lived in areas with limited access to healthy foods, defined as areas where more than a third of residents lived more than 800 meters from a grocery store in urban areas or more than 16 kilometers in rural areas.
As a result, approximately 23% of the children were found to have lived in areas where their mothers had low food access during pregnancy. Another 24% of the children lived in such areas during infancy.
The researchers found that living in these areas during fetal or infant life was associated with higher childhood body mass index (BMI) at ages 5 and 15. These children were also more than 50 percent more likely to be obese at ages 5, 10, and 15.
These results are consistent with previous research that found that childhood obesity rates have been steadily increasing even as food insecurity continues to rise among American children. The researchers noted that as of 2022, about 17% of children will live in households with food insecurity, up from about 13% in 2021.
The researchers noted in a background note that previous research had shown that people living in the poorest areas of the United States had about an 80 percent increased risk of obesity. The findings suggest that access to healthy foods “may be an important factor in preventing the development of obesity in childhood and adolescence,” Aris said.
He said investing in improving access to healthy foods early in life “can play a critical role in preventing childhood obesity and creating healthier communities,” including encouraging supermarkets to open in areas with limited access to food, providing healthy food pantries, and improving access to healthier food options at small retailers and convenience stores.
The paper can be found at the following link (
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Source: kormedi.com
